Footnote 16: [(return)]

Under the Arab dynasties of the east, the vizir was exclusively an officer of the pen: and Makrizi expressly mentions that Bedr-al-Jemali, who became vizir to the Fatimite khalif Al-Mostanssor in 1074, was the first in whom the sword and the pen were united.

Footnote 17: [(return)]

See Sale's Koran. Preliminary Discourse. Sect. 8.

Footnote 18: [(return)]

Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, i. 351.

Footnote 19: [(return)]

Eighty free schools are said by other authorities to have existed or been founded during this reign in Cordova; the number of dwelling-houses in which at the same time, great and small, is stated at 200,000.

Footnote 20: [(return)]

Some historians even speak of this period as the "dynasty of the Amirites," from Al-mansur's father, Abn Amir.

Footnote 21: [(return)]

The precise locality of this famous battle is not very clearly ascertained; but Condé places it betveen Soria and Medinaceli.

Footnote 22: [(return)]

The battle is placed by the Christian writers in 998; but the death of Al-mansur, which both Christians and Moslems agree in stating to have taken place within a very short time, is said by the latter to have been A.M. 392, A.D. 1002.